Higher education always seems to be in crisis. Governments, foundations, professional associations, and the occasional scornful professor all tend to lament one or another problem plaguing America's colleges and universities. The more apocalyptic claims state that the United States is a "nation at risk," that our students' minds have…

In this essay, we interrogate the role of academic freedom in the 21st century by describing its historical genesis in the modern university, its association with the concept of tenure, and how it is reinterpreted by different cultural and social contexts. Afterwards, we examine traditional infringements by national governments upon academic…

This article examines how tenure and academic freedom are portrayed in novels about academic life. The novel provides unique opportunities to explore philosophical questions and allows readers to examine meaning rather than truth, existence as opposed to reality. Thus, the novel suggests what is possible, which reality forecloses insofar as from a…

Examines four proposed solutions being developed on different campuses to revamp tenure and education, arguing that to adequately handle organizational problems in higher education, it is necessary to emphasize the cultural framework in which academe is situated. Discusses tenure as structure, organizational critiques of tenure, restructuring…

Notes that increasing numbers of medical schools no longer guarantee the full salary of tenured professors and suggests faculty members must rely on traditional structures of shared governance to ensure that the decoupling of tenure from salary does not destroy academic freedom within the university. Evaluates five models proposed to deal with the…

This book examines faculty socialization at American colleges and universities and presents the results of a study on the effects of promotion and tenure on community and socialization in academe. It is based on a study of institutional socialization and faculty peer review carried out at 12 colleges and universities in the United States,…

Articulates the four most significant areas of potential tenure reform. Offers the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal and provides examples of why such suggestions have been made and what has occurred. Concludes with some alternative suggestions for addressing current problems in academia that do not involve eliminating tenure. (MJP)

The structural aspects of ritual in a modern university and the way that ritual operates through the use of tenure at Stanford University is assessed, based on an ethnohistorical analysis of the firing of a tenured professor, H. Bruce Franklin. Mr. Franklin actively opposed the Vietnam War and Stanford University's alleged involvement with the…

This digest is a brief summary of a longer monograph of the same title on the importance of understanding faculty socialization as a cultural process in the context of the current changes urged on higher education. A section on how faculty socialization is conceptualized adopts a view of culture in which culture shapes and is shaped by social…

This monograph examines the importance of understanding faculty socialization as a cultural process in the context of the current changes urged on higher education. An opening section explores the links between culture and commitment and the importance of understanding such links in light of faculty diversity and other challenges. A second section…